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ROPE (AFD 2017)
This is an apocryphal entry that was submitted for April Fool's Day 2017. For the genuine entry, see ROPE. The ROPE (Really Over Powered Engineering) vehicle was a semi-autonomous transportation device introduced by Doctor Morpholololologis as a means of achieving access to the Really Deep Chasm. It's design was less than successful, resulting in an implosion of quantum realities that, when the verteron dust settled, resulted in two disgruntled and one disappointed person stuck at the bottom of a really really deep hole with no cake. General Design Though w4sted would likely comment that "design" was not a feature of this particular vehicle, the ROPE has two internal decks - one for the illusion of control over the vehicle, and the lower for two passengers (also known as "dupes") who double as crash cushioning for the control deck. Propulsion in the four cardinal directions are handled by atmospheric thrusters and four hydrogen thrusters provide downward thrust as well as the potential to annihilate the entire vehicle in the event of a crash as means of keeping the landscape clean of littered parts. Sensors are prevalent on all four sides, presumably for recording hilarious in-flight footage for the black box. (Which we suspect is just a black-painted armor box anyways.) The vehicle was also equipped with spare hydrogen for the return trip, as well as a high power radio repeater (dixie cup and string) to maintain contact with the surface. Life, Death, Rebirth This design has the unfortunate designation of perhaps the shortest lived craft in the Group Survival series, suffering complete guidance failure on its maiden flight. The craft entered an unrecoverable spin and rapidly dropped to the bottom of the shaft. Its crash position destabilized an already unstable wreck (and its borderline unstable passengers), resulting in an emergency evacation (run like hell) for safety (get out 'da way!). After its penultimate crash, there was little left of the ship for salvage aside from some armor blocks, a popsicle, and a t-shirt with a picture of Xocliw on it. Though considered a complete failure, the craft's design would live on. Sales of ROPE were quite high after the events on Bob were classified and buried so deep that even this vehicle couldn't reach it in a full on crash dive. Initial sales tanked quickly though as several salespeople were convicted on charges of fraud and misleading advertising (see "The ROPE-a-dope Scandal") after several high profile crashes, including one that crushed the Chief Executive of OMNI-OMNI-Corp. Despite the deaths, several hundred more were sold as consumer safety institutions (like "No-Dakadakadaka") had extensive problems in trying to get safety certifications established by unfortunately timed deaths and dismemberment. Production was shut down in late 2141 not by any legal action, but by a faulty ROPE crashing into the production factory, setting off a chain crash that resulted in the Greater Clang Black Hole in the Devron system. The remaining fleet of ROPEs were shipped -- carefully -- to the Kingswood Naval Obscurement and Tiedown facility on Mars, where they would remain until the Zoot Suit Riots of 2193. Trapped behind enemy lines, with no chance of rescue or resupply, General Potatoes ordered the unmothballing of the vehicles, to be refitted with "umbrellas to make Potato Holes". Engineers gleefully rigged the machines with improved avionics, packed the decks with high yield explosives, and sent them plunging towards the enemy lines. This led to the near-utter annihilation of the Justican armed forces and earned renewed interest in the ROPE as a capital-class torpedo. Experiments with the ROPE continue to this day as it remains a front-line weapon of Federation capital ships, including the most recent attempt to use Lotus capital launchers to fire ROPEs in a chain volley (Serially-Oriented And Pushed) informally known as "SOAP on a ROPE".